MURALS BREAKING MONOTONY

These paintings were done by the students of the Chitrakala Parishad of Bangalore. A group of over 20 students of graduate and postgraduate students in arts visited and stayed at the farm for a few days along with their professor, and after discussions with us painted murals on the walls of the dormitory unit and also near the swimming pool. All these murals are child -centered and offer a great break from the likely visual monotony that might have infected big concrete structures. Now it all looks cheerful really like a children's campus. All the students and the faculty showed great willingness to visit us again and do some more murals and works of art.They have painted 9 murals so far on the walls of our dormitory. This has enhanced the environment greatly and the children are so very happy.

It is interesting to reflect on the contribution of murals to mood. I started to reflect only after Chandra explained to me what is a mural. For frankly I didn't know exactly what is a mural. Some kind of painting, rather huge I suppose, I hazaarded a guess. I might have seen some of them but classified all of them under the general category of Painting. I confessed my ignorance of a proper definition.

Drawing, illustration, design, composition, collage, tableau, canvas, fresco, cartoon, sketch, daub, pencil and crayons, oils, watercolours, portrait, silhouette, profile, miniature, scene, landscape.....I rattled off all the terms that came to my mind in a vain effort to prevent Chandra thinking I was a zero when it came to art appreciation. And to impress her more, before she was going to enlighten me on murals, I referred to Picasso. And I lightened the discussion with a joke. Well, not really a joke, but a real incident, which makes you laugh as well as reflect :

It seems a very rich man, an art-collector perhaps, was visiting Picasso's studio. He paused in front of a painting that totally puzzled and floored him. WHAT DOES THIS PICTURE REPRESENT? he asked Picasso. Oh, two-hundred thousand dollars, Picasso replied!

Ah, we seem to have come to a modern age of civilisation when artwork is entirely judged by its price in terms of cash, said Chandra. Perhaps Picasso would have decently and humbly explained the meaning and purpose of the picture properly if the inquirer had been only an ordinary lover of art instead of being a snobbish artcollector whose satisfaction was nothing more than in announcing to the world that he was the proud possessor of a Picasso. However, "I paint things as they are. I dont comment, I record", seems to have been the philosophy of many great painters. And someone said that one reassuring thing about modern painting is that things cant be as bad as they are painted!

Or, who knows, Picasso might not have cared to articulate anything to anybody. Look out for yourself, he might have said. But as far as we in Pathway are concerned we are holding our murals in very great esteem because of their definite contribution to peace and happiness and well being and mental health allround, added Chandra. Words will not be adequate to thank Chitrakala Parishad. Our murals, if you come to think of it pricewise, are costlier than Picasso, Chandra quipped. Because if you want to buy them you have to buy the whole building!

Oh, so murals are those large paintings on walls! I exclaimed, in sudden illumination. Painting may be an indoor art, you dont put a Rembrandt or RaviVarma on the lawn, but you can have a mural overlooking the lawn.

Then Chandra's point about peace and happiness made me ask more. Chandra continued. A mural is a painting painted directly on to a wall. A fresco also is a picture painted on a wall, but usually immediately after the construction of the wall while the plaster is still damp. Our ancient forefathers kept their sanity in an insane world through painting pictures on the walls of their caves, and today when the world has gone even more insane we need these wall paintings all the more, she said. Only a cynic like Ambrose Bierce can dismiss a mural as

"THE ART OF PROTECTING FLAT SURFACES FROM THE WEATHER".

What is your own school of philosophy as a painter, I asked Chandra. I had bought a painting from her recently. A tiger. Reminding me of the lines of Poet William Blake. Tyger Tyger burning bright. That is the spelling. She laughed and said, well, you wont be able to buy my next painting!

It is going to be costlier than Picasso? I asked.

"No, I am planning to paint a mural." She had chosen a big blank wall that wanted it. And she added: The aim of all painting is to represent, not the outward appearance of things but their inward significance. I mused and said I would be impatiently waiting to admire her own handiwork. What subject is it going to be, I queried. She simply said, well, wait and see!

The message of our murals, if you are looking for one, is just this hope, says Chandra. And she pulled out from her handbag a crumpled paper that carried the copy of a painting. Andrew Wyeth drew the original, she said. A girl is dressed in pink. She is looking towards a farmhouse. Do you know what the picture seems to tell? This girl is crippled and has crawled down the hill from the house and now is eagerly trying to gather the strength to return home. Make your own copy of this as an exercise in water colour and bring it to me, Chandra told me. I took it and asked, and then you will permit me to try my hand at murals?

NO, NO, not yet, Chandra laughed and said, "I will first put you into graffiti. You can do anything. Any unauthorised painting according to your own whims and fancy. I am setting apart one wall for this, for you and all our children! What people usually denigrate as sheer vandalism! But go ahead, I like it. Actually it is also a kind of viable art by itself. And a stepping stone , perhaps.."

I thanked her profusely, and then, to complete my first appreciation course on painting asked her, "Say that word again, grafff..."

"Graffiti. It is a collective plural. The singular is Graffito."

---------Prabhu   

(Postscript from Prasad: Prabhu has recently completed graduation creditably. With guidance from Chandra he has become a Painter, who signs himself Graffito)